Facebook adverts will follow you wherever you go online

There was a big kerfuffle a few years back when it became clear that logging into Facebook installed cookies on your computer that were capable of viewing your browser history, even when you weren’t logged into Facebook. People were rightly annoyed. Now it looks like that programme is expanding somewhat.

The new system will see adverts on Facebook behaving in the same way as adverts on Google, namely tailoring the adverts you see based on your own web experience rather than just how you behave on Facebook.

This also mean that Facebook will be able to show adverts to users even when they’re not actually on the Facebook site. It’s part of a deal with advertising firm Omnicom Group, which also happens to be one of the largest advertising agencies in the world.

It’s not clear whether you’ll be able to tell that the advert themselves are part of Facebook’s network, or whether they’ll just look as irritating as the regular adverts that pop up on the web. Plus if even a fraction of the 1.3 billion users end up seeing the new Facebook adverts across the web, it’s bound to earn them a decent chunk of cash.